Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Monday condemned what he described as the "insolent campaigns" that are targeting Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi over his controversial visit to the Holy Land and Israel, saying he will maintain contacts with Bkirki in a bid to put an end to the ongoing presidential vacuum.

According to a statement issued by his press office, Geagea telephoned al-Rahi, expressing his “strong condemnation of the campaigns that are targeting His Eminence” and describing them as “insolent campaigns that breach all Lebanese norms and traditions.”

Palestinian and Israeli rights groups on Sunday wrote to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton demanding her "urgent intervention" on behalf of 125 prisoners on long-term hunger strike.

The letter was sent as the overall number of Palestinian prisoners refusing food climbed to 290, including 70 being treated in hospital, an Israel Prisons Service spokeswoman told Agence France Presse.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said the line-up of a unity government will be announced Monday, after a delay over who will head the foreign ministry.

Islamists Hamas and the Western-backed Palestine Liberation Organisation, which is dominated by Abbas's secular Fatah party, signed a surprise reconciliation agreement in April to end years of rivalry.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi returned to Beirut on Saturday afternoon after his controversial visit to Jerusalem, but rejected to make any statement upon his arrival at the Rafic Hariri International Airport.

"Al-Rahi returned to Beirut at 4:30pm on board a private jet coming from the Jordanian capital Amman,” the state-run National News Agency reported.

Hizbullah announced on Saturday its rejection of the presence of “Israeli agents” in Lebanon, in an apparent response to Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi “who went to the Palestinian occupied territories to convince them to return" as the party said.

"Someone went to occupied Palestine to convince some agents who withdrew with the enemy's soldiers in May 2000 to return to Lebanon,” Loyalty to Resistance bloc MP Ali Meqdad said at a party event in the Bekaa city of Baalbek, expressing that “this issue has annoyed” him.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Friday said the Lebanese state must not deal with its citizens who fled to Israel in 2000 as “criminals,” noting that they are not the ones who have “impeded the presidential election.”

During a visit to the Druze village of Isfiya near the northern Israeli city of Haifa, al-Rahi said he was “profoundly hurt” by those who have criticized his historic visit to Israel and the Holy Land.

Israeli soldiers foiled a suicide attack Friday, arresting a Palestinian in the West Bank who had a dozen pipe bombs hidden under his coat, the army spokesperson said.

The soldiers arrested the man as he approached an army checkpoint "wearing a suspiciously large coat" in the sweltering heat, and found 12 pipe bombs strapped to his body.

Israeli President Shimon Peres and his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas will pray for peace at the Vatican on June 8, the Holy See said Thursday.

Pope Francis had invited the pair to his home for a "heartfelt prayer" for peace during his three-day trip to the region, and the meeting "will take place on June 8, during the afternoon," a date "accepted by both parties," the Vatican said in a note.

Israeli soldiers raided the offices of a Palestinian newspaper in the West Bank city of Ramallah Wednesday, ordering them to stop printing publications by the Islamist movement Hamas, managers said.

"Officers informed us that Israel would not allow the printing and distribution of Falastin, Al-Resala, and Al-Istiqlal," three Hamas newspapers, the Al-Ayyam's managers said in a statement.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi held talks Sunday in the West Bank city of Bethlehem with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who awarded him the Star of Jerusalem, a high-ranking Palestinian medal.

According to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, the meeting was also attended by Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, top peace negotiator Saeb Erakat and former Latin patriarch of Jerusalem Michel Sabbah.